Losing Shego
by purplegirl761
Summary: Two important very occasions for Shego. Two very difficult times for Drakken. Not a deathfic.


**And now, just in time for the holidays, a heaping dose of warm fuzzies! Enjoy!**

**So what's with the rating, you ask? Well, let's just say that Shego. . . um. . . goes on a date in this story, and Drakken worries about what any protective father/older-brother type worries about in that situation. There's nothing _too _gorchy here, but I've rated it T to be on the safe side. **

**Anywhoo. . . **

"Shego!" He dashes out of the laboratory, skidding on the floor in his sock feet, hardly notices as his goggles, which are hanging around his neck, slap hard against his chest, almost as hard as his own heart is beating. He just made a discovery! A patented, Dr. Drakken Devious Discovery of - of - of - drat, he can't think of a word for "genius" that starts with a _d_, but that doesn't matter right now. . .

"Shego!" He hears his voice wind higher in excitement - maybe some frustration - why isn't she answering? "Shego, where are you?" he adds as he turns a corner so fast his nose almost smacks into the wall.

"In the living room!" his sidekick hollers back. "What in the world is going on?"

A-ha! He has a location! He turns around, arms and legs flailing, and takes off toward the living room as fast as he can. "I have made a discovery, Shego!" he booms as he throws open the door, letting it bang against the wall and bounce back, which always makes him feel incredibly powerful.

"Well, could you make it at about thirty decibels lower?" Shego's voice, as bored as ever, drifts from the left side of the room.

Humph. Growling and muttering under his breath, he stalks over to her and huffs a hot breath down her neck so she can see that she's annoyed her boss.

Not that Shego notices. She's too busy doing - what _is _she doing? She's sitting on a chair with her legs dangling out in front of her, leaning in toward a little round mirror propped up on one of _his _desks, the ones he has scattered around the lair should inspiration ever strike him while he's watching TV or eating breakfast or doing his taxes. And she's got a pencil in her hand, but there's no paper in sight.

But none of that's as interesting as his Devious Discovery of D-Genius, which he needs to get out as soon as he can before he forgets it. "Okay, Shego," he coughs out, voice as quiet as he can make it with world domination nearly in his grasp, "here's the thing. Remember how Kim Possible trapped us in that super sticky stuff last week?"

"Do I ever." Shego grunts and rolls her eyes at him. They look - _different _than they usually do, but he can't quite figure out how. Sparklier, maybe. "I was the one who had to chop away at it for, like, two solid hours before we could break out."

Yes, and he was absolutely starving to death by the time she did. But that's not important now, either, he reminds himself. "That's what's so amazing about it!" he cries gleefully. "See, I got on my hands on some samples of that substance -"

Before he can even mentally congratulate himself on saying _substance _instead of _stuff_, Shego smirks at him. "Were these the 'samples' that fell down the back of your lab coat?"

_Oooh._ He shudders at the memory of that itchy, crawly feeling, which made the little goo-box they were trapped in seem to run out of air even faster. "Well -" he coughs a little, trying not to let his dignity slip away - "perhaps! AND I performed tests on this substance, and what I found was - was - was - "

__

Need a word, need a word -

"Astonishing!" he blurts out. There! That's a very good word, if he has to say so himself.

Shego looks more amused than impressed. "So what's so astonishing about it?" She raises one eyebrow, which looks darker than usual. Weird. Maybe he needs to fix the lights -

_FOCUS, Drakken._

"This substance has two stages: Sticky and Solid. When it is in its Sticky Stage, it adheres to absolutely anything." He takes a deep breath and puffs out his chest, preparing for the even-better part. "But it only stays in this stage for a very short amount of time. Once it becomes Solid, it's. . . stuck." He shrugs, for lack of anything else to say."

"Stuck." Shego repeats the word like she can't believe he just said it, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Stuck! And no amount of physical force will make it unstick!" His voice winds up again, because the more amazing his findings get, the less attention Shego appears to be paying to him. "Only several _hours _of extreme, constant heat will penetrate - Shego, what ARE you doing?"

She's leaning in closer to the mirror and using the pencil to draw lines under her eyes. She's using the pencil right on her _face_.

He frowns. Why in the world would a smart person like Shego draw on her face? Nobody draws on their faces, except circus clowns and really little kids, and he's pretty sure she's not either one.

Shego puts down her pencil and widens her smirk. "Good grief, Doc, no need to yell. I'm just putting on my makeup."

_Makeup_? He feels his eyebrow fold in the middle. Makeup is lipstick and nail paint and werid stuff for your eyelashes that you have to put on with your mouth open - not _pencils_!

"Why are you putting makeup on _under_ your eyes?" he demands, leaning in next to her to scowl at his own reflection. Why would anyone want dark stuff under their eyes? After all, he's got a lot on him, and it sure doesn't make him look very attractive. . .

Shego twists up her lips at him, the way she always does when she thinks he's being stupid. "Cause it's _eyeliner_. That's what you're _supposed _to do with it." She sounds like she's trying to explain trigonometry- which, come to think of it, he understands a lot better than this. Whatever this is.

He tilts his head, like the right thought is going to slide into place from the other side of his brain. "Why?"

Shego moans deep in her throat. "Because! That's just the way it is, okay?"

No, it's _not _okay. His sidekick's suddenly messing around with makeup, which isn't like her at all, and it's preventing her from paying attention to his Most Amazing Plan Ever, and if he doesn't finish explaining soon, they're going to be late to -

"Shego!" He yanks up his sleeve and stares at his bare arm, trying to figure out where his watch went. "Tonight is Karaoke Night!"

Shego smacks her forehead with the palm of one hand - hard. "Dr. D," she says, in that voice she usually reserves for when he's running a fever, "I told you two weeks ago that I wouldn't be able to go to karaoke tonight."

She did? He glowers at her, too tangled-up inside to think of anything else. "How was I supposed to remember that for two whole weeks?"

She points her pencil at him, accusingly, the way she always does with her nail file. "You see, they make these things called calenders -"

_Oooh. _Now she's mocking him, and it already hurts. He needs to make her stop before it gets any worse. "I can't even find my _watch_, Miss Sassy Mouth!" he snaps, twisting his arm around to see if the stupid thing somehow managed to hide on the other side of his wrist.

"Other arm, Doc," Shego says calmly, one eyebrow up. Her voice only sounds a tiny bit amused, and her lips aren't twitching. She must be ticked at him - "tweaked" at him, his arch-foe would say.

Oh. He curls up his other sleeve and, sure enough, there's his watch with its nice gleamy front and its minute hand and its hour hand and its state-of-the-air _second _hand that moves even faster than him after twelve cups of coffee. Shego was right - again.

How does she always do that? And how is going to go to Karaoke Night without it? Anger tightens his chest's screws, until he has to thunder, "Well, _why _can't you come with me?"

Shego rearranges herself on the stool, and for the first time he sees that she's wearing high heels, the kind that look like they could stab you. He backs away in case she tries. "If you must know, I have a date tonight."

A whowhatwhenwherewhy?

He leans forward and scrambles around for the back of Shego's chair, because the floor under him has suddenly evaporated or something. "A - a - a - a - a d - d - d - d - date?" Good grief - he hasn't stuttered that bad since fifth grade.

Shego nods, sort of smugly, and all his words leave. _Everything _leaves, except for anger - and fear - and the horrible feeling that his sidekick - his best friend - is about to be run over by a train and he has to save her, which is really weird, considering she sometimes winds up saving him. Okay, maybe a little more than sometimes. . .

"What's the matter?" Shego's voice is teasing again, but it doesn't make him feel any better. "Hard to believe that I actually have a date?"

He can't answer. Even if he did have words, his saliva just ceased production, and he forgot how to work his jaw. Dates - those are the kinds of things pretty girls go on. Shego's pretty, all right - maybe even beautiful - but she doesn't get dressed up and wear makeup and go on dates. She wears gloves and a jumpsuit and fights Kim Possible and makes fun of his evil plans, and that's the way he likes it. That's the way it's supposed to be.

Besides, sometimes the people that go on dates with you aren't as nice as you hope. Like that one girl - what was her name? Allison? Jennifer? Teresa? - something frilly - anyway, they went out when he was sixteen years old, only he didn't have his driver's license yet, so she had to pick him up. Dinner went okay, but at the movie theater, she wanted to go see some R-rated movie that Mother wouldn't let him see, and when he told her that, she guffawed in his face and left. With the car. Eddy had to come get him.

And those are just the girls. The _boys _-

Ohmigosh. He slaps a hand over his mouth and tries desperately not to hurl. He may not have exactly have been a social moth back in college or whatever the term was, but he'd heard some boys talking about the things they wanted to do on dates. Things he never thought anyone would do for non-reproductional purposes.

The train just got a whole lot bigger and faster.

"Shego -" he manages to cough.

Shego raises her left eyebrow and the right side of her mouth, which kind of makes him dizzy. "Drakken?" she chirps sweetly.

That's almost a sure sign she's being sarcastic, and he's in no mood for sarcasm. This is serious business, even more serious than his discovery of the Super Sticky Substance, and she _still _won't listen! Doesn't she know she's about to be hit by a train? "Who is this boy?" he snarls, almost surprising himself with the coldness in his voice.

"Some guy I met at the beach." Shego shrugs at herself in the mirror. "You don't know him."

Great. Is that supposed to make him feel better? Every hair on his body is standing on end - and even though he might not be very hairy, that's still a lot of stand-up-ness. "Are his intentions honorable?"

Shego whirls around to face him, her upper lip curled. "Please tell me you did _not _just say that."

"I _did _just say that." He narrows his eyes and plants his hands on his hips, gritting his teeth down so hard his ears ring. No matter how sarcastic Shego gets, no matter how many hurtful words she uses, he's not backing down. Not this time.

His sidekick recovers enough to half-smirk at him. "And what does that mean to you, Doc?"

Ulp. Urk. Um. He swallows hard, feels his Adam's apple bob. His ears are burning like he accidentally set them on fire again. "You see - Shego - some - men - women - nnnggghhh - kerfff - bleh!"

"Fascinating." Shego pats his shoulder, and he jerks away. Her eyes soften, just a tiny bit, so tiny he might be imagining it. "Don't worry, Doc. If he tries anything stupid, I'll put him in a full body cast."

His belly burns hotter than his ears, flips six or seven times in a row. He knows she can do that - been scared she was going to do it to him several times - but he doesn't want her to have to. Shego should be safe and sound and coming to Karaoke Night with him. "Let me do it for you," he growls.

Shego snorts, which he can never do without sounding like a mutant pig. "You?" she asks, looking at him from head to toe, taking in the fact that he's only about an inch-and-a-half taller than her - and the fact that he has _some _muscles, but they don't bulge and bunch and make him look fierce.

But he sees his own face in the mirror, and it almost scares him. He's never looked that villainous before, and he's not even _trying _this time. "I mean it, Shego! If he ever even - _looks _at you wrong, I'll feed him through every Doomsday device I've ever invented until there's nothing left of him!" His voice goes up and cracks, but he doesn't even care.

"Whoa." Shego's eyes widen, and she takes a few steps back, like he actually scared her. "Big tough guy, huh?"

He nods so hard he can feel his chin touch his chest. "Kim Possible would be _nothing _compared to that."

Shego's mouth goes soft at the corners for about half a second. "Huh," she mutters under her breath.

The room is suddenly too small and awkward, so he has to talk to make it bigger. "So - where are you guys going?" he blurbles out.

"The usual." Shego starts to spread the strange pencil-makeup _above _her eyes. Girls. "Dinner and a movie."

He blinks. "At the same time?" He didn't even know they let you do such things. Sheesh, no wonder the prices of movie tickets have gone up. . .

"No, Doc." Shego switches back to her _this-is-trig-and-you're-in-first-grade-so-I'll-be-patient _voice. "Dinner, _then _a movie."

The prickles are still there. _My mom doesn't let me see R-rated movies_, he can hear his teenaged voice squawk. "What movie?"

"Oh, for the love of Pete." Shego flings her hands into the air. "I don't know!" She swivels around to face him, then adds, "But it probably _won't _be something G-rated. Capache?"

How is he supposed to "capache" if he doesn't even know what that is? "How about that new sci-fi film that just came out?" he suggests desperately. "It's only PG, and I know how much you _love _sci-fi!" He ends that sentence with his happiest exclamation point, and gives her a big smile and a perky ponytail to seal the deal.

"No, Doc, that's you." Shego's voice stays flat.

Oh. Right. It is. He chuckles - nervously, almost a giggle. "Are you _sure _you don't want to bring this guy to Karaoke Night? And let me meet him?"

"Hmm, let me think about that." Shego puts down her pencil and taps her chin in thought. Before he can even shudder out a breath, because maybe things are going to be okay after all, she flashes her eyes at him and snaps, "Absolutely positive!"

"HGGGHHHH GRRKKK MMMDDD!" Where are the words? Where are the answers? Where has his superior supergeniusness gone? Why doesn't anything make sense? He buries his face in his hands and tries to gulp the confusion away.

"Charming." Shego's voice sounds disgusted. And close. He feels her hand, long fingers and sharp gloves, on his shoulder, but he doesn't look up. "Look, I gotta go, so if you wanna say anything coherent to me, say it now, okay?"

He sniffles and glances up at her, at those green eyes that are looking at him like he's on her _very_ last nerve _ever_. At Shego, who he could never, ever replace. Sure, maybe he could find someone smart enough to help him with his schemes - maybe even someone tough enough to fight Kim Possible - but it's not the same. Just knowing Shego _exists _makes him feel like everything will, somehow, be okay. Nobody else can do that except his own mother.

"Hello?" Shego waves her hand in front of his face, and he jumps because he didn't know she was going to do that. "Drak-ken?" she sing-songs.

He doesn't answer. Still trying to remember how to speak.

Shego, who _never _forgets how to talk - even though he sometimes wishes she would - leans down and tucks her pencil into the pouch on her leg. "Hey, how do I look?" she asks.

Blink. He tilts his head again and studies her. She looks - green. Tall. Lots of hair - he's never seen anyone with as much hair as Shego has. "You look - like Shego," he finally answers. "With pencil on your eyes."

Shego rolls the eyes in question. "I forgot who I was asking," she mutters to herself.

Hmmm. That must have been the wrong answer. But, for once, that doesn't matter. Only one thing matters. "You're my best employee, Shego," he says in the strongest voice he can manage. "I don't want to lose you."

For an instant, Shego looks - he doesn't know what. Maybe confused. He's never seen her look confused before, so he probably wouldn't know. Then she smirks, but it's almost a smile. "You won't," she answers matter-of-factly.

He nods, suddenly too weak and limp to do anything else. Taking charge is hard work. "Be good," he informs her sternly.

Shego rolls her eyes again. "Said by the megalomaniac as he works on his Doomsday device."

Up go the prickles. "That wasn't what I meant!" he snaps.

"Well, what _did _you mean?" Shego puts her hands on her hips.

The heat rises back to his ears _and _his cheeks _and _his nose. He closes his eyes to think of a way to say it, a way to stop blushing, and when he opens them again, Shego's gone. So is the green-and-black hovercraft he made for her last Christmas.

Hmm. Either a horribly sudden matter-antimatter reaction caused them both to disinegrate, or -

He tries to stomp his foot with great indignity, but all he can manage is a sad sigh. She left. Without even saying goodbye.

For the first time ever, Karaoke Night isn't that much fun.

**()()()()()()()()()**

_Many years later_

He should be happy.

He scowls down at the exactly seven marshmallows in his hot cocoa, shaped in a frowny face. They scowl back at him, and he hooks his feet under his chair so they won't jitter and distract him from the list of reasons he has to be happy.

There are only a few more weeks left until Christmas. Lights. Presents. Cookies. Snowman Hank. Not having to spend it alone in jail. Leaning against Mother's leg while she reads the Christmas story and feeling warm and safe.

It snowed the other night - and not just those flurries that aren't good for much except making the ground too icy to walk on. No, this was real, soft, deep _snow_, the kind you could scoop up and eat and form into perfect snowballs and make snow angels until your whole front lawn was covered with them, which is kind of nice to look at, because then it looks like a bunch of angels are standing guard outside your house, protecting you.

And, no matter what an amazing scientist and powerful flower-man you are, it's nice to have some protection.

Plus, there was still enough snow left in the _back_yard to make a gigantic snowman, which he did, lugging his chemistry set outside so that he could dye it blue. Dead leaves and grass for the hair and ponytail. Broken-off twig for the scar. Swirly little ball of Play-Doh for the nose.

He made a little snow poodle, too, just so Commodore Puddles wouldn't get jealous. And his dog promptly peed on it - he's not sure if that was an insult or a compliment.

_Probably a compliment, _he thinks, glancing over at Commodore Puddles, curled up on his little rainbow rug, snoring in soft little poodle-grunts. He looks so peaceful and content. The way he, himself, should be.

But can't be.

There's a plate of Christmas cookies in front of him - he made them himself, since cooking is so much like chemistry - and a mug of hot cocoa and exactly seven marshmallows. But he doesn't want it. He feels tangled and sick inside every time he thinks of Shego, which is every two seconds.

She wasn't there to enjoy the amazing snow with him and she isn't sitting in his kitchen eating his marvelous cookies and laughing at him when he accidentally attaches "moo" to the end of "hot cocoa." She's out looking at - he swallows hard - _dresses_.

What is there to look at anyway? They all look the same - white and sparkly and beautiful. And they all give him acid reflux.

He pounds on his chest and stirs his cocoa with a spoon. Not that it matters which one she gets. Shego will be the most beautiful bride in the history of the world. He'd stake everything he's ever invented on it.

And then she'll leave on her honeymoon - it hurts to even think the word. And even when she gets back, she'll be so busy with her new house and her husband - _oooh _- that she won't ever have time to come visit him. Or have a snowball fight or play mini-golf or come to his house to watch movies and laugh at him for crying at chick flicks.

No more Shego. The planet might as well have stopped revolving around the sun.

He shivers and wraps his arms around himself, cold even in his fuzzy red reindeer sweater. Maybe it already did.

Oh, sure, there are other people that can make things better - people like Mother or Dr. Director or his friends at Global Justice or that kid who used to be a buffoon, whose name he can never remember. Commodore Puddles. His flowers, which are right now pressing their vines against his face like they're trying to hug him.

But there's no substitute for Shego. She's his _best_ friend. His sister. His former employee. He wishes there was a word for all of that rolled into one person.

Well, until they make one, she's just a Shego. And he's just a Drakken, and she's seen him at his best and his worst and mocked him and handed him tissues when he cried and stayed close with a thermometer and a basin whenever he had the flu. . .

Not to mention this kid she wants to marry. He seems nice enough - but _everybody _has to act nice when they meet their finance's family. Even his father - more like his sperm donor - must have seemed nice at one point, or Mother wouldn't have married him, and he turned out to love his work a whole lot more than he loved his wife.

Or his son.

He swallows away the lump. Yeah. What if this guy turns out to be a - a "scumbucket," as the teens today say? What if he hurts her feelings? What if he leaves? He remembers the way Mother looked for the first six months after Sperm Donor Dude left her, and it makes him want to blow something up, which he hasn't done for a very long time. At least not on purpose.

_Fiance, _that's it. Or _fiancee_, he's not sure which. Either way, it's not the same thing as _finance_. Stupid English language.

He feels his flower sigh. Now, with them, he doesn't even have to talk. They just know things. No need to try and untangle his words and find the right ones, when they can just _sense _how he feels, what he means. Too bad it can't be like that with other people. Maybe it could, but then he have to attach them to his neck, and that would be very uncomfortable. . .

__

Ding-dong.

"Was that the doorbell?" he asks out loud. Commodore Puddles opens one eye, glares at him, and then closes it again. His flower doesn't even know what doorbells are, so he guesses it's up to him to find out.

_It better not be one of those door-to-door salesmen_, he thinks as he stomps up to the door. He hasn't hit them with lasers or dropped them into shark tanks for a long time, but he just might do it today. Don't they have the decency to leave people alone when their - their - their - _Shegos _are about to get married and leave them behind and maybe even get hurt in the process?

He flings open the door and stares into a sharp, green, female face. A Shego-face. She has her hands up to her nose, plasma glow on, shifting from foot to foot like she has ADHD. Like him.

Snow sure is pretty when the sun shines on it.

Doy! He jerks backward and stares, sure he must be seeing some kind of snow mirage. Maybe he's so sad, so desperate not to lose Shego, that his brain is playing tricks on him, making him think he hears a doorbell and sees her standing outside his door, wanting to come in and spend time with him.

He rubs the condensation off the storm door and blinks twenty-five times in a row. The Shego mirage wobbles a little, but she doesn't disappear. Either he's finally gone crazy or -

"Little pig, little pig, let me in," a dry voice calls out.

Mirages don't talk. At least, he's pretty sure they don't. Sure enough to let him open his mouth and yell back, "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!"

Shego rolls her eyes. "You don't even have any hair on your chin. Now will you lemme in? It's freezing out here!" she snaps all in about one breath.

That's Shego all right. He opens the storm door and, before he has to time to think about whether or not this is a good idea, he grabs her and pulls her into his chest and whimpers into her snow cap.

"Hey!" Shego squawks, pulling herself away. "Dude - what are you _doing_?"

Oooh - her eyes are angry. Probably best not to tick her off if he's never going to see her again. "I'm sorry, Shego," he mumbles, trying to will the lump in his throat away. "I got a little carried away."

Oooh - her eyes are angry. Probably best not to tick her off if he's never going to see her again. "I'm sorry, Shego," he mumbles, trying to will the lump in his throat away. "I got a little carried away."

"I'll say." Shego takes off her cap and shakes out all her huge hair. "So, why the big greeting, Dr. D?"

"I _missed _you!" he cries. His voice goes way up into the stratosphere, because he can't even believe that she's standing here in his living room. His insides are all wobbly with relief. "Did - did you miss me?"

The instant the words are out of his mouth, he cringes inside. Shego doesn't get lonely as easy as he does. Whenever she arrived at his lair on Monday and he would jump up and down and say hello at the top of his lungs, she'd twist up her mouth at him and say, "It's been less than forty-eight hours; what are you, codependent?"

He's not sure what that means. He only knows that this time Shego kind of twitches her lips at him and mumbles, "Yeah, I missed you. Week's an awfully long time to go without you bugging me."

She tugs his ponytail, and he wrenches away from her by instinct. But, deep down, he doesn't really mind. That's sort of Shego's version of a hug.

"I thought you were going to look at dresses," he says, poking at Shego's arm with his cocoa spoon to make sure she's _really _here.

She sits backward on a kitchen chair and half-smiles at him. "I was. I did. But even us weird females -" she wiggles her eyebrows, and he crunches his in the middle - "can only look at them for so long. After awhile, they all start to look the same."

He nods and takes a slurp of the cocoa he's suddenly thirsty for. It slides down his throat and warms up his belly, and everything feels safe again for a second. _Ahhhh._ "Don't they all look the same to start with?"

Shego rolls her eyes again. "_Males_. Hego said the exact same thing, and the Wegos were all like, 'Why can't you just wear your jumpsuit'?"

He takes one of the soggy marshmallows out of his mug and pops it in his mouth. "Why can't you?"

Shego groans and puts her face in her hands, the way she always does when he asks one of _those _questions. The kind that girls always know the answers to and boys never will, so he should just drop it.

So he does. He drops it without even adding that she would look pretty no matter what she wore. That might be sort of weird, even though it's just true and doesn't give him flutters inside the way it would with some other girls.

Instead, he pushes his favorite Snowman Hank plate across the table at her and points at his sugar cookies and gingersnaps and peanut butters and chocolate chips. "Have a cookie, Shego," he instructs her. "I made them myself."

Shego leans in, perfectly plucks a gingersnap off the middle of the plate without disturbing any of the other cookies - how does she _do _that? - and cocks an eyebrow at him. "Cooking and chemistry?"

He nods happily. The warm cocoa feeling is spreading around in his chest. "All the great chefs compare them."

"Right." Shego takes a bite, eyes dancing at him. "You heard it on _Magic School Bus_."

Darn. How does she always know?

His chest goes cold again. Nobody else knows him that well. Not even Mother.

"Okay, so - " Shego lays the cookie down on a napkin and raises _both_ eyebrows, which is Shego for I-mean-business. "What I wanna know is, why have you been avoiding me for the past week?"

He pokes at his sugar cookie, which he doesn't want to eat anymore. Some of the frosting falls off and lands on his napkin. "I haven't been avoiding - " he starts, but Shego cuts him off.

"Oh, yes, you have!" Her eyes narrow down into those slits that always give him the willies. "You haven't come over, haven't called, and then when _I _come to check on _you_, you pounce on me like I'm the last lifeboat on the _Titanic_."

See, now, Shego's good with words. But now's not the time to be jealous. Now's the time to explain himself - calmly - hope the right words come -

_And DON'T CRY, Drakken! _he commands himself.

So he sits there, swallowing and licking his lips and swinging his feet and fiddling with the pom-poms on the waist of his Christmas sweatpants, until the lump in his throat shrinks down small enough to let him talk without tears. "I'm sorry, Shego," he says in his firmest voice. "I - I _have _been avoiding you, and I'm sorry if it hurt your feelings! It's just - I - I -"

Gulp. Sniff. Come back, words. Please.

Shego doesn't say anything sarcastic. She just leans forward, chin resting on one hand, like she knows this is something serious and she'll wait for him to remember how to use English.

"I - I guess I'm just getting ready for you to leave because when you get married you're not going to have time for me anymore or be able to come over because you'll want to do everything with your husband instead of your annoying - Drakken - person - gagggrrrh - and maybe if I get used to it then it won't hurt so bad when it happens!" That all comes out in one big blurt, because he knows if he stopped, he would lose his speech capacity and never be able to start again.

He takes in a huge puff of air and falls back against his chair and plasters his hands over his face just in case his eyes need to leak. But Shego still doesn't say anything - sarcastic or otherwise - and he finally peeks out from between his fingers to see her gaping at him like she thinks _he's _a mirage.

"Oh, Dr. D," she finally says, shaking her head almost sadly. "Good grief."

The instant he hears her voice, his chin crumples. She sounds like she feels sorry for him. He's not sure if he wants that right now, but the tears incorrectly take it as permission to break through. Not a lot of them. Just a few that he can't stop.

"Hey, hey." Shego snatches up her napkin and hands it to him. "Don't cry. Please."

He dabs his eyes with the napkin and hiccups. It rattles around in his chest, which feels all wobbly again, like he's just breathed helium.

"I mean it." Shego leans forward even further and grunts in disgust. "'Cause if you cry, then I have to feel bad for you, and then I might actually have to be nice." She smirks, only it's - softer than usual, somehow. "And I don't do 'nice' too well yet."

But she's sure trying. He drops the napkin and rests his head on the table and stares at the ceiling with bleary eyes. It feels like he's waiting for something, only he has no idea what.

Maybe for Shego to say what she says next. "I'm not gonna leave you, Doc."

He wants to believe it so bad he almost does. "You're not?" His ponytail perks up and leaves his ears cold.

"No." Shego shakes her head firmly, and her hair swishes back and forth. "I mean, for Pete's sake, lots of girls get married, and their friends still see them all the time. What makes you so special?"

He can't answer. He's afraid to answer, for fear he'll somehow mess up and throw off the balance of the universe and make her leave after all.

"After all," Shego continues, "somebody's gotta accompany you to Karaoke Night."

He dares to grin at her. "And take me to see all the Star Trek and Star Wars movies that come out."

"And watch you pee your pants halfway through _Revenge of the Sith_."

Blood rushes to his cheeks and turns them almost as red as his sweater. "We've been over that, Shego!" he spits out indignantly. "I'd just had one of those big two-liter things of Sprite right before we went in -"

"Right, and you weren't scared a bit." Shego's lips twitch. "I remember that now."

Enough about that. "You're not leaving?" he repeats hopefully.

Shego winks. "You're stuck with me, big guy."

She means it, he can tell, and it fills him with such excitement and happiness - such pure joyfultitudeness - that he forgets all his words except for "!" which he hollers at the top of his lungs as he springs out of his chair and knocks it over and wakes up Commodore Puddles. His puppy's paws skitter on the linoleum as he tears out of the room.

And Shego shakes her head and rolls her eyes and turns up one corner of her mouth. He gives her a sheepish grin back. "Oops."

"Yeah, yeah, 'oops.'" Shego bends down and pushes his chair back up into its upright and locked position, as they say on airplanes. "You are such a klutz."

She might as well have said, "I love you."

"He missed you too, ya know," Shego adds.

He rolls his own eyes. "I'm quite sure he did." Why doesn't the sarcasm drip perfectly off his tongue the way it always does hers?

"He did!" Shego leans her elbows on the counter and takes another bite of gingersnap. "He likes you, Doc."

"Humph!" he retorts in his humphiest voice. "Evidently not as much as he likes _you_."

Shego folds her arms across her chest and gives him that no-nonsense look again. "He's a good guy."

That stupid lump in his throat comes back, and he swipes at his face like that'll make it go away. "Not good enough," he mutters. "Nobody's good enough for you, Shego."

He's only seen Shego look astonished a few times in all the years he's known her. This is one of those times. It seems to be about six weeks before she swallows like she's got a lump of her own and then pat his shoulder.

"Well, thanks," she says. Her voice still sounds snappy, but there's no sarcasm in it. "But, look, if he were a -"

"Scumbucket," he mutters.

"Exactly. If he were a scumbucket, I wouldn't love him. I wouldn't be marrying him." Shego tilts her head to match his, which he hadn't even noticed he'd cocked to the side. "Do you trust me, Drakken?"

He nods, though he's pretty sure he doesn't need to. She already knows. She's told him a million times that she can read his face like a book, and you can't trust somebody with your life and not let it show on your face - every now and then.

"Then trust me to make the right choice about this." Shego shoves his cookie at him. "Eat your cookie."

He takes a bite and ponders that for a minute. He knows Shego. She's smart. She's a good fighter - with words _and _with her glowy fists. She doesn't take nonsense from anybody, and she doesn't let scumbuckets hit on her. And she's good at making decisions - she doesn't jump back and forth from one choice to the other and try to pretend she's making up her mind when she really has no clue what to do. Like he does.

"Okay, good." Shego snickers. "Those things have been sitting out for, what, twenty minutes now?"

"Forty," he mumbles through a mouthful of sprinkles. _Ohhhh_, these are good, if he has to say so himself. He might want to eat, like, twenty or thirty more, they're so good. Soft and warm and comforting, even though his doctor told him fourteen times at his last checkup that he's not supposed to use food to comfort himself.

"Forty minutes," Shego corrects herself, "and you hadn't even taken a bite. I was getting ready to call 911."

Ohhhh. Like the hospital. He doesn't like hospitals, so he shoves the rest of the cookie in his mouth to demonstrate just how un-sick he is.

_Heavenly. _"It's okay, Shego," he muffles. "See, I'm eating. See?"

"I see, all right." Shego brings one hand to cover her eyes. "Please do that with your mouth _closed_, okay?"

"Oh." He snaps his mouth closed and licks the stray sprinkles off his lips. "Okay."

Wedding thoughts are stuck in his brain now, thoughts of when Kim Possible and her goofy blond boyfriend finally tied the knot. How good the cake was. How much the organ music made people cry. How James Possible had stood there with his arm linked through his daughter's and then given her away with tears trickling down his face. He'd never seen James cry before.

Hmmm. He looks at Shego, still twitching her mouth at him and looking like the same old Shego he's known for almost ten years. She doesn't have a dad, he knows. And he doesn't have one to loan her. "So - who's going to give you away?" he asks, and then cringes again. Missing parents are one of the things they've agreed never to talk about. Like the Diablos and Warmonga and Hank's Gourmet Cupcakes. . .

Shego's eyes dance, though, like she's just been _waiting _for him to ask her that. "Well, if he agrees," her mouth stops twitching and spreads into a full-blown smile, something he's rarely seen on her, "probably my oldest brother."

He nods and takes a sip of cocoa. "Hego?"

She shakes her head slowly, baffilingly, notmakingalickofsense-ily. "Actually, I want _you _to give me away."

The cocoa comes flying back out his mouth _and _his nose and he wouldn't be surprised if some spurts out of his ears, too. "Me?" he coughs, pounding on his chest, tilting his head in every direction it'll go. Did he just hear her say what he thought he heard. . . just. . . her. . . just. . . say . . . Shego. . . drat, he's forgetting how to make sentences again.

"Uh, you're the only one in this room." Shego arches an eyebrow.

He jerks his neck around, looking for somebody to disprove that, but even Commodore Puddles has left. Traitor. "Well - actually - there are - are billions of bacteria in the air all around us - at any - any given second," he stutters. That, at least, he knows for sure.

Shego flings her hands up in the air. "Drakken, you dork. I'm not asking a bacteria to give me away."

Pause.

"I'm asking _you_."

He nods - what else can he do? - and stares down at his hands, like the answer's written there in invisible ink and all he has to do is go get some lemon juice and squeeze it onto his hands and rub them together and then everything'll make sense. Why can't it be that easy?

He's flattered - no, _honored _- that Shego wants him to give her away. She even came right out and called him her brother, which she's never done before. But - to give her away? To stand there and basically say, "Okay, she's not mine anymore. You can have her!"? How can he do that?

How can he _not _do that?

Big breath. Close your eyes - that makes things clearer.

He does. And he remembers James Possible with his arm linked through Kim's, his jaw set tight, his eyes telling that Stoppable kid that if he tried anything stupid he would be shark bait in about three seconds. Maybe - maybe if he's there, _this _kid will know the same thing.

That makes him feel solid in the chest again. Solid enough to know what he has to do.

"Will I have to wear a suit?" he asks.

"Doy," is Shego's only reply.

He groans, remembering the way his one and only suit makes him itch like it's lined with poison oak. "I'll look like a dweeb," he protests. He doesn't know if anyone still says "dweeb" anymore or not, but it's how he feels with his ruffly sleeves digging into his arms and his tie flipping up in his face and a bunch of little old ladies staring at his ponytail.

"Yeah, you will," Shego agrees. She gives his arm a playful punch. "But you'll be a pretty cute dweeb."

He blinks, trying to figure out whether to be insulted or complimented or even believe she just said that. Shego must notice, because she leans in toward him and whispers, "If that leaves this room, I'll melt your head. Got it?"

He winces, trying to not to picture how a head could melt. "Got it." He rocks up on the heels of his Santa slippers and looks down at her. "I'll cry, though."

"Of course you will." Shego waves her hand through the air like it's no big deal. "Dude, it's your _job _to cry."

He shoves his hands in his pockets and remembers all the times he's bawled, made her cover her face and shake her head or yell, "I DON'T KNOW THIS GUY!" at the top of her lungs. "You won't be embarrassed?"

"I'd be embarrassed if you didn't." Shego points her chin at him. "So - yes or no?"

The kitchen's overhead light suddenly seems very bright, and the heater really loud and his sweater really warm. He knows he needs to answer, but his lips are sticking together.

"You're my sister, Shego," he finally manages to whisper. "My best friend. I don't want to lose you."

He closes his eyes and breathes deep from his toes and waits for Shego to sigh and say, "Yes or no, Genius?" But the hand he feels on his shoulder is. . . almost gentle, at least for Shego.

"You won't," she says. Her voice is calm, matter-of-fact, like he just asked her about something as ordinary and simple as the periodic table. There's something comforting about it, just like there was the first time he heard it, all those years ago.

"Promise?" he adds weakly. There's a quiver in his voice he would have rather died than let out. He wants to be her protector - take care of her no matter where she goes or what she does or who she marries - but he's still so scared. Probably more scared than she is.

"Yeah." Shego reaches up and tweaks his nose, which he wriggles away from. Sometimes that makes him sneeze, and it's _always _annoying. "I promise."

"Then -" he takes a deep breath and prays he's doing the right thing. "Yes, Shego. I would be honored to give you away."

"Okay. Good. Well." Shego dusts her hands together, like she's brushing away the topic. "That's enough sap for a couple of months. Now - how did you make a _blue _snowman?"

He grins and takes another big bite of sugar cookie and starts to explain to her about the amazingness of methylene blue. Not only in his chest solid inside again, it's about to burst with joy. It's like someone reversed his polarity from totally miserable to completely happy, and he can't smile big enough.

Because Shego obviously still cares about him, or else she wouldn't have come over and asked what was wrong - and asked him to give her away, even though she has two other older brothers who could have done it. He must be pretty special, and maybe, just maybe, getting married won't change that.

He knows it won't change _him_. No matter where she goes or what she does or who she marries - or how scared he gets - he's going to be there for her and protect her.

After all, that was what a Drakken did for his Shego.


End file.
